IconFinder launches a marketplace dedicated to that tricky element of Web and app design – icons

IconFinder, a search engine for, yes, icons – has just launched a marketplace that will allow designers to sell their work, capitalizing on demand for one of the most common, but hardest to get right, elements of Web and app design.

IconFinder Marketplace integrates with the existing search engine, which the Danish startup says sees almost 2.5 million visits per month and 100 million icon downloads. The aim here is to be the go-to destination for anyone looking for an icon for their app or website.

Sellers get access to a dashboard detailing earnings over time, with IconFinder taking a 30% cut from each transaction. Participating designers are handpicked by the startup to ensure that a level of quality is maintained. Meanwhile, buyers can purchase icons either individually or in sets.

In the screenshot above, you’ll notice an Apple-themed icon, and there are plenty of other icons available based on the logos of companies like Facebook and Twitter too. Does selling icons based on others’ trademarks concern IconFinder?

“This is definitely something we are careful about,” says CEO and co-founder, Martin LeBlanc. “By purchasing icons you buy the rights to use a current version of a icon. So by buying e.g. a Twitter bird in 3D, you are paying for the rights to use the creative work and not the rights to the Twitter bird it self.”

It’s a surprise that there aren’t plenty of other icon marketplaces out there already. We’ve previously covered The Noun Project, a marketplace for minimalist, black icons but LeBlanc says that he considers more traditional stock media sources like iStockphoto and Shutterstock as the closest competitors to what IconFinder offers.

Copenhagen-based IconFinder was founded in 2009 and has received $1.8m in investment from VF Venture and 500Startups.